Methods of treatment and prevention of snoring are inherently not conducive to self-medication or self-administration due to the fact that a person who is snoring is necessarily asleep. As such, a person who is snoring typically must rely on another party to detect when that person is snoring so that a treatment or medication may be administered to prevent or substantially reduce the reoccurrence of snoring.
Auto-medication or auto-administration methods of treating or preventing snoring typically require a system that automatically detects when a person is snoring, and then automatically administers a prevention or treatment remedy. For example, a remedy may include inducing the person to adjust his or her physical posture, or locally administering a medication, preferably in or near the person's oral cavity, to prevent or substantially reduce continued snoring.
International Application No. WO 2006/002338A2, which was published Jan. 5, 2006 and which is incorporated herein in its entirety for all purposes by reference thereto, describes systems and methods for monitoring persons during sleep by recording respiratory and sound data to recognize cough-arousal events. The reference also describes administering an anti-tussive therapeutic agent to a person when a cough-arousal event is recognized. With respect to cough recognition, the reference describes monitoring using a monitoring garment comprising sensors that provide respiratory signals, sound signals, and EEG signals from a person; and a computer system comprising a computer readable memory comprising encoded instructions for receiving said sensor signals, which are processed in order to recognize cough events. Respiratory data and signals are preferably obtained from sensors that process a person's tidal volumes. Sound data and signals are preferably obtained from a sensor that is in contact with, or in close proximity to, the person's throat.
Prior automatic snore detection systems are relatively inaccurate and imprecise with respect to distinguishing an actual snore event from background noise or other artifacts that may originate from a person during sleep. This may result in unnecessarily triggering the administration of a prevention or treatment remedy. In light of these false-positive events, there remains a need for an automatic method and system for more accurately and precisely detecting the occurrence of snoring while a person is sleeping.